Analysis of speechreading cues using an interleaved technique

A method of locating visible differences between “homophenous” phonemes has been developed. Alternating frames from two video-recorded VCV utterances that differ only in the consonant are interleaved. The output contains odd frames of one utterance and even frames of the other. Presentation of these frames at 30 frames/sec results in a video recording that contains areas of jitter in those regions of the face that are not in identical positions at the same time during the production of the two utterances. The areas of jitter indicate the points of interest for detailed measurement. For homophenous VCV pairs involving /p/, /b/, and /m/, interleaving resulted in strong jitter in the lower lip and cheeks. There was no jitter when two utterances of the same phoneme were interleaved. A concurrent perceptual study showed that good speechreaders were able to discriminate between members of a homophenous pair in a forced-choice experiment.     

Computer applications in audiology and rehabilitation of the hearing impaired

Computers are playing an ever-increasing role in audiology. The potential applications of computers in audiology, speech pathology, and aural rehabilitation are described. These include the use of computers in adaptive testing, speech analysis and synthesis, automatic extraction of speech features, supplemental speechreading aids, analysis and synthesis of speechreading cues, language analysis, and computer simulation of the effect of specific speech training strategies.     

Speech production in hearing-impaired children

Investigations in recent years have indicated that only about 20% of the speech output of the deaf is understood by the “person-on-the-street.” This lack of intelligibility has been associated with some frequently occuring segmental and suprasegmental errors. Errors of voicing and omission of consonants as well as vowel substitutions are common articulatory problems. Suprasegmental errors are associated with problems of timing, intonation, and voice quality. Yet, in spite of the relatively consistent findings regarding these frequently occuring errors, the correlation between the errors and overall speech intelligibility is less clear. The interrelationship between error types and the frequency of occurence of a particular error type must be taken into consideration when interpreting the true effect of the error type on speech intelligibility. It is only when this is determined that one can begin to predict how much improvement to expect from correction of specific errors.     

Pragmatics and elicited imitation: Children''s performance on discursively related and discursively unrelated sentences

Two experiments were conducted to determine the elicited imitation performance of preschool children when the stimulus sentences were meaningfully related to each other in a story as compared to when the sentences were arranged in a random order. Experiment 1 used a repeated-measures design and found a practice effect demonstrating less errors during the second trial regardless of experimental condition. Experiment 2 implemented a group design with one group imitating the related (story) sentences and the other imitating the randomly arranged sentences. The results showed no significant difference in the mean number of errors occurring in the “story” versus the “random” condition. The implications of the practice effect found in Experiment 1 are discussed and the error pattern during the second trial is evaluated. The efficacy of using discursively related as opposed to unrelated sentences in elicited imitation tasks is discussed from a pragmatic point of view.     

Feature characteristics of spontaneous speech production in young deaf children

Sixty-five 6-yr-old deaf children from state supported schools were given an adaptation of the Goldman Fristoe test of articulation to assess their spontaneous speech production. Responses were measured in terms of features of manner, place, voice visibility, position, and error type and compared to imitative samples. A rank order of difficulty for each phoneme, error type, and word position is presented. Results show that of the phonemes, low back vowels, diphthongs, laterals, and voiced consonants were more easily produced. A relationship could be found between fundamental frequency, formant frequency, intensity, and phoneme production, suggesting that these variables and features may be providing the governance underlying the phonological rules in the development of speech in the deaf. Suggestions for training are given.     

Markedness analysis of phonemic substitution errors in apraxia of speech

The phonemic substitution errors of ten apractic speakers were analyzed to investigate the effects of markedness on speech production patterns. Results revealed that: more errors were produced on phonemes high in markedness; more changes in markedness were from marked to unmarked than unmarked to marked; and errors and directional changes in markedness were positively correlated with ease of articulation. The findings were interpreted as a systematic effort by the apractic speakers to reduce the complexity of articulatory gestures required to produce phonemes.     

Assessment of language comprehension of 6-year-old deaf children

Sixty-five-6-yr-old children from the New York State Schools for the Deaf were given the assessment of children's language comprehension (ACLC), administered orally and manually, along with a specially designed test of receptive language, the syntax screening test. The responses on the ACLC were analyzed according to selected word types. The test stimuli were analyzed and classified into a hierarchy of linguistic complexity to evaluate the children's comprehension of various linguistic structures. Results show that comprehension of word types (nouns, verbs, etc.) and linguistic structure can be orderly, producing a hierarchy of complexity similar to that found in normally hearing children. However, performance was about 3 yr behind that of normally hearing peers.     

Prosthesis in velopharyngeal insufficiency: Effect on nasal resonance

A review of case history records showed that 80 postoperative cleft palate cases with velopharyngeal incompetence and hypernasal voice quality had received speech therapy once or twice a week for unspecified periods of time but were unable to produce normal nasal resonance prior to the fitting of a nasopharyngeal prosthesis. After the fitting, 59 (74 percent) had normal nasal resonance during clinical assessment with an additional 10 showing reduced but residual hypernasality. It therefore is suggested that speech therapy may not be the treatment of choice in many cases of velopharyngeal inadequacy. Creation of what may be considered a relatively more normal speech mechanism by means of pharyngeal prosthesis seems to result in normal nasal resonance in a large majority of cases.     

A review of linguistic factors associated with early childhood stuttering

This paper summarizes recent thinking on several aspects of early childhood stuttering. The concept of fluency is examined, and a review of research that traces the acquisition of fluency in young children and its relationship to language acquisition is presented. Other topics considered are the relationship of normal childhood nonfluencies to early stuttering, stuttering as it relates to language acquisition, and psycholinguistic influences on stuttering in young children.     

Cholesterol cyst manifesting as a middle ear vascular tumor

A localized, cystic, "blue ear drum" (idiopathic hymotympanum) mimicking a middle ear vascular tumor occurred in a 12-year-old boy. This lesion must be included in the differential diagnosis of suspected vascular mass of the middle ear. A history of eustachian tube dysfunction should be sought. Physical examination is usually not diagnostic, and a full radiologic evaluation is essential in order to rule out a high jugular bulb, an ectopic carotid artery, or a glomus tumor.     

Computer-assisted analysis of written language: Assessing the written language of deaf children, II

Two pilot studies investigated the accuracy of a computer parsing system for analyzing written language of deaf children. Study No. 1 compared the computer program (machine) with a speech-language pathologist for agreement in phrase structure analysis of a corpus of written language samples produced by deaf children. In addition to identifying the various phrase types, the proportion correct of several of the phrases was indicated. An overall score of grammatical correctness was also awarded each sample by both machine and human raters. Study No. 2 compared the computer program, the speech-language pathologist, and a linguist for agreement in parsing a subset of these language samples before and after minor corrections were made in the program. Results of the studies showed good agreement between human and machine raters.     

Trousseau's syndrome in the head and neck

Thromboses in Trousseau's syndrome are typically confined to the vascular system of the extremities and viscera. The authors report a case of sequential bilateral internal and external jugular-vein thromboses secondary to this paraneoplastic hypercoagulable state. The etiologies of commonly encountered head and neck venous thromboses are infection, trauma, and obstruction. This article purports that head and neck venous thromboses without a proximal inflammatory or mechanical cause may be the initial manifestation of an occult malignancy. Upon establishing the presence of a hypercoagulable state, further evaluation may lead to the early diagnosis of such an occult malignancy.     

Language-based cognitive abilities in adult aphasia: Rationale for intervention

The purpose of this investigation is to explore operational definitions of cognition, intelligence, information processing, language-based cognitive abilities, cognitive processes and products, problem solving, decision making, and the complex events that happen in the brain when one stimulates a patient. These definitions are explored in order to develop a coherent and generative rationale for therapy. It is hypothesized that a specification of the underlying targets of our stimulation therapy may increase the effectiveness of our intervention efforts.     

A computer program for distinctive feature analysis

A computer program is described that will accomplish a distinctive feature analysis for speech misarticulations. The program, which is written in fortran, is interactive in nature and is straightforward in design. It greatly facilitates the use of distinctive feature analysis in articulation training, as it reduces the time necessary to complete such an analysis from several hours to approximately 15 min.     

Cervical abscess caused by Salmonella infection

A 69-year-old man had an abscess in the neck caused by Salmonella hador (enteritidis) infection. Salmonella infection of the head and neck are rare, and often occur in association with Salmonella infection in other parts of the body. The patient described may have had seeding to the neck from previous gastrointestinal infection. Treatment by drainage of the abscess and oral administration of ampicillin was successful. To the authors' knowledge, this is the sixth case of pure Salmonella infection of the head and neck reported in the world literature.     

Instrumentation and validity for direct-readout voice onset time measurement

Methods and instrumentation for direct readout of voice onset time (VOT) are presented along with sample measurements for three subjects. Mean VOT and intrasubject variability are compared with data obtained from wide-band spectrograms. The results suggest that the instrumentation described yields VOT values comparable to those obtained from wide-band spectrograms. Implications for diagnosis are discussed and research needs are identified.     

Does the stigma shape the stutterer?

The Woods and Williams' (1976) study of Iowans' stereotypes about stuttering males was replicated using 11 speech clinicians and 16 classroom teachers in Virginia. Ratings of 23 possible characteristics were obtained for four hypothetical concepts (typical 8-year-old male stutterer, typical adult male, and typical adult male stutterer) using a semantic differential format. The results of the Woods and Williams' (1976) research were confirmed. Stutterers were expected by all rating groups to be more nonassertive, tense, insecure, and afraid to talk than nonstutterers. Not only were stereotype differences within professional groups quite small from one geographical region to the other, but classroom teachers held particularly unfavorable stereotypes of the stuttering boy in both studies. These results suggest the possibility that listener reactions could shape the stutterer's behavior.     

A descriptive study of children with chronic hoarseness

Chronically hoarse children with nodules were found to be similar to those without nodules on various perceptual measures. Twenty of thirty of these children showed improvement after a year of rehabilitation in the public schools; improvement varied according to the abilities of individual clinicians.     

Children''s use of four semantic cases in two conditions

The production of agent + action + object + locative relations by 3;6- and 5;6-yr-old normal children and language-disordered children was investigated. These utterances were produced after children observed object manipulation or while copying object manipulation. The results indicated a developmental trend in the use of case relations. The manipulation task enhanced the use of case relations by the language-disordered group, whereas the observation task was more effective (or equally effective) for the normal groups.